Police in Ferguson managed to disperse a crowd early Wednesday morning by focusing on containing and corralling protesters.
Security forces in Ferguson Tuesday. Adrees Latif / Reuters
The officers darted in quickly, cleaving the crowd in two and leaving a swirling wake of chaos. On a bullhorn, a woman who had previously led an hours-long march yelled for the protesters to stand their ground. Some stayed. Others ran. Always there were a few people walking, slowly.
Seconds later, the police stopped and a man in a sweaty white tank top — everyone and everything was dripped with sweat Tuesday night — charged toward the line. But before he made it to the officers, other protesters grabbed him, talked him down.
Then the police started walking again. Advance. Stop. Advance. Stop. Move! one of the officers would shout as they came within inches of the scattering protesters and media, the barrels of assault rifles and shotguns were pointed at the ground.
In spurts, the police corralled the crowd toward the parking lots at the corner of W Florissant and Ferguson avenues. When they reached a chain link fence, a group of St. Louis County officers pushed it down, then drove the crowd that remained up and over. As the protesters retreated, waves of chanting washed over isolated pockets. "Hands up, don't shoot." "Stand your ground." "We stay, that way."
And then, it was over. The crowd mostly dispersed and all that was left were a handful of people — 20 or fewer — sitting in a parking lot that police said they could occupy all night.
Despite the intense interactions between police and protesters early Wednesday, most of the evening Tuesday was peaceful. Tensions were high: when at one point police ran to arrest a man they later said was fighting, it looked like more violence might erupt. But ultimately, a handful of arrests and police staging up and down the street didn't spark violence.
As the protesters marched through the evening and the night wore on, the police began preparing to move the protesters into smaller and smaller areas. The first major push, just after 11 p.m. CT, was to clear a parking lot. The crowds weren't happy as they retreated, but for the most part they didn't resist.
Next, police began lining the streets and the sidewalks, forming and kind of human wall that in many places forced everyone onto the sidewalks. There were gaps, but in general police began drastically reducing the amount of space protesters could use. That drove up tension within the crowds, but for the most part people retreated. The police kept squeezing the crowd into a smaller and smaller space. Apparently, every time the space got smaller, some people simply left.
Jim Dalrymple II
from BuzzFeed - Breaking http://ift.tt/1sUbp4M
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